Sean's Running Blog

Easy six miles this morning at 7:25 pace. I feel absolutely fantastic 48 hours post marathon. In fact, I felt great yesterday and could have easily done 5-6 miles. I attribute the quicker recovery mostly to being stronger going in. I'm a big believer in my new found religion of stretching and doing core exercises. I have a long way to go but I've gotten a big whiff of how important it is.

Next race is probably a local 10k in two weeks. I may opt for the 5k but would like to smash my 10k PR of 33:03. I've never run a 5k though so I'm thinking I might do that instead. I'm also considering running the Grandma's Half Marathon in Duluth in three weeks. That might be pushing it a bit but I would like to get in one flat and fast half this year and those don't exist in Washington.

Six easy miles this morning

8 easy this morning followed by some very light weight lifting and a few core exercises.

Another 8 easy miles. Half on soft trails and half on pavement. I'm noticibly a bit tired but feel great considering i ran a marathon five days ago.

10 easy

9 easy. Ready to go back at it full steam next week.

12 miles today followed by a bunch of stretching and several core exercises.

I did 30 crunches

30 leg lefts

15-10-5-5 adductor lifts at 30, 40, 50 and 60 lbs. respectively

Did the same for the abductors.

8-6-4 hamstring lifts at 20, and 40 lbs. respectivley.

Today was one of the hardest mornings to get myself out the door for a run. I think the "Juneuary" weather was to blame. 41 degrees and rain made me wish I had taken up an indoor sport. Oh well. What doesn't drown you makes you stronger I guess. It's supposed to be nice weather for my 10k race this weekend.

96 -- ST2 Racers

319 -- Trance 7

272 -- Adrenalines

Downright balmy weather this morning. 46 degrees and rain. We've moved into February. June may only be days away. A new section of the neighborhood opened up so I found another chunk of running area that will make it easier to do 12 miles in the neighborhood without running a bunch of laps around the block.

Pretty excited for my 10k race on Saturday. The weather is supposed to be perfect.

Today I ran 10.5 miles including 10x100m strides. Then I hit the gym and did a bunch of strength exercises and the same weight routine I did on Monday. I feel like I'm almost 100% recovered from the marathon. I'm probably not, but I feel close.

Still some drizzle hanging around for my run this morning but we have been promised better weather as the day and weekend progres.s

Just 12 easy miles this morning. I felt a little bit of muslcle fatigue early on presumabluy due to the weight and exercises I did yesterday. Feel fine though.

Shorter run this morning in anticipation of the 10k tomorrow. Shaping up to be fabulous weather. We deserve it.

What a glorious morning for a run. The sun was out and the temperature was in the mid 50s. The only downer was a fairly strong breeze out of the north.

My goal going in was to break 32:00. It was somewhat random in that this was only my 3rd 10k and I didn't know how recovered I would be from my marathon two weeks ago. Winning the race was secondary although a time under 32:00 would usually be sufficient to win this race.

The start was late due to either an unexpectedly high number of people registering the day of or poor planning on the part of the race for not getting through the line quicker. We were almost 15 minutes late which pretty much makes an effective warmup impossible. Oh well.

When the gun finally went off, I and three other guys jumped out to an early lead. I crossed mile 1 in 4:58. A good start especially into a non-trivial wind. Our pack was still four at the one mile mark.

By mile 2, we had said goodbye to the 5k runners and our pack was down to three runners: me, Leif Kohler and Eric Garner, a former University of Washington standout. http://gohuskies.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/garner_eric00.html

Mile 2 was a bit slower as we crossed in 5:06. The wind was far more noticeable on this stretch.

There was no mile 3 marker. I HATE this. How hard is it to freaking put a mile marker at every mile. So my lap split came at the turnaround spot. It was 5:38 for the 1.1 miles which equates to a 5:09 mile pace. I was excited to head back the other direction to get out of the headwind. The 1/2 way split was 15:42.  Since I've never run a 5k, I guess that is my new PR.

I was leading at the turnaround by a few seconds. This is when things got interesting. Leif began dropping off and Eric jumped out to the lead. It was clear he was making an effort to surge and see what I would do in response. For the first minute I tried to stick with him but I was concerned that the increased pace wasn't something i could maintain and I didn't want to blow up at the end. This was mistake #2.

I crossed mile 4 in 5:02 and was about 10 seconds back of back now and Leif was way back. This is when I started to realize I may have made a tactical mistake by not going with Eric when he made his surge at the halfway point. Barring a major injury or blowup, second was mine and so was a decent time. But, catching Eric, who is tall, long-legged and had great footspeed, was going to be infiintely harder now than if I had gone with him when he tried to surge.

With one mile to go, I was still about 10-15 seconds back and Leif was nowhere to be seen. There was a short window here where i thought I might be able to catch Eric but he is a short distance specialist and I would have never been able to take him if it came down to a sprint to the finish.

My last mile was in 5:02. So I finished strong but lost the race. 

Race mistakes:

• Leif and I made things a lot easier for Eric by creating a great wall blocking the wind for him on the outbound half of the race. Eric was smart to stick behind us and let us do all the work.
• Not going with Eric at the halfway point. My inexperience at this distance gave me some hesitation as to what to do. I gave up too soon on trying to stay with him. Had I stayed with him, I may still not have won, but I would have known how much he really had left. 

It's hard to focus too much on the mistakes when I PR'd by 1:35 and ran what would have been a course record if I had been the winner. Racing should always teach you something and make you a better and smarter runner the next time around. I need to be more confident in the strength that marathon training gives me and use that to my advantage.

I felt no residual soreness or fatigue from my marathon. That was a pleasant surprise.

As a side note,  my 10-year-old son finished in 25:28, a PR by almost four minutes. I was very proud of him especially since he never trains.

12 miles through the streets and trails of my wonderful neighborhood.

I stopped by the gym after 11 miles to stretch and stengthen.

Did 30 crunches, 30 leg lifts on each leg. 15-10-5 adductor and abductor with the weight at 40, 50 and 60 respectively.

Did the same for the abbductors before finishing with the hamstring lift at 12-8-4 reps at 20, 30 and 40 pounds.

Albeit slowly, I'm getting stronger.

Today's run was boring in that it involved several laps around the neigborhood, but different in that I was measuring several different potential routes for a Monster Dash 5k run I'm thinking about putting on in the Halloween timeframe. I think I found one.

As for the run itself, everything felt very lethargic and tight this morning. 45 degrees and drizzle didn't help but I think it had more to do with playing two hours of softball last night.

Another cool and damp morning. What I save in watering the lawn I spend in heating the house. Still feel a bit lethargic. I'll probably lay off the early morning runs the rest of the week and do some lunch time runs from work.

Days like today are why I live where I live. Sunny skies and 74 degrees during my lunchtime run along Lake Sammamish. It's no coincidence that the warmer temps did wonders for the lethargy and overall tightness I've felt all week.

For 9 of the miles, the weather was fantastic. 78 degrees, nice breeze and clear blue skies. For three of the miles, it felt like that place with little red men with pitchforks.

Today was my first speed workout since the Newport Marathon, not counting the 10k on Saturday. The workout was 3x1mile at 4:50 with 4 minutes rest in between each. I kind of dinked around this morning waiting for it to warm up not realizing that waiting was not required. So I kept my warmup to 2 miles and then jumped into the workout.

Mile 1 -- 4:47 -- Felt great actually. A little quick but not ridiculous

Mile 2 -- 4:51 -- Felt great until the last lap. Really had to work on the last one

Mile 3 -- 4:59 -- I knew by the end of the second lap (2:29) that I wasn't going to hit my number so my goal was simply to keep it under 5:00. Also at the halfway point, my bowels were beginning to not cooperate, by the end of the third lap, I was seriously questioning whether I would make it around the track for another lap without making a mess of myself. Well, I did but it was too close for comfort.

Probably more detail than anyone wanted but there you have it. I drank 16 ounces of water during the workout and that still wasn't enough. Even after just the workout portion, my face was a giant salt lick.

Cool down was nice and slow...7:00 pace. Long run tomorrow.

Everything went pretty well today. 20.1 miles at 6:36 pace.

By the time I left the house it was 68 degrees and mostly cloudy. Much more comfortable for a long run than yesterday would have been. I ran a route I haven't run in many, many months. I left my house which is at about 900 feet above sea level and ran down the parkway to the town of Snoqualmie which sits at 428 feet. First mile which is basically flat was in an easy 7:15. The the next two miles are downhilll....St. George style. The next three miles took me through one of the more remote roads in the area filled with rollers which a pretty significant net gain in elevation. Then you quickly lose all the elevation gain over the seventh miles. The rest of the way, with the exception of Mile 18 and 19 were pancake flat through mostly lightly traveled backroads here in the Snoqualmie Valley. After 17 miles it's time to start back up the parkway to my house. 433 feet of elevation gain in about 1.75 miles. Then a mile of mild rollers back to the house with a net uphill of less than 100 ft.

I've used this route several times last summer in preparation for St. George. I've always wondered how the parkway downhill and uphill compare to some of the hills at St. George.

The Parkway has an average gain/loss of 234ft. per mile. As a comparison, the steepest mile at St. George, measured in terms of drop per mile, is Mile 21 with a drop of 263 feet. So going down the parkway is a very close approximation to Miles 21 and 16 at SGM. Coming up the Parkway is twice the slope that the uphill at SGM Mile 7 is so that was also good practice.

Anyway. I feel a nap coming on.

P.S. Just noticed I missed the 80 mile mark by .65 miles. I was very tempted to count the mile or so bike ride I took with my kids the other day. I guess I could have also counted the 20 kilometers I walked this week measuring three different race courses for two upcoming races I'm putting on. :-)

107 ST2 Racers

424 Trance 7

272 Adrenalines

A fairly sluggish feeling 12-mile run along Lake Sammamish. I've felt an overall lack of energy since my long run on Saturday.

I hate Paul! OK, I actually only hate Paul's voice that gets in my head when I'm wanting to bail on a workout. It's the "leave it on the track" mantra that keeps ringing through my head. Enough! :-)

Today was one of those days you just write off and move on from. I did four warmup miles and then jumped into the workout: 4x1000m @ 2:57 with 1 minute rest.

First one was in 2:55, then 2:57. But it all fell apart after that. The third was in 3:07 and I fought hard just to keep a 3:04 on the final rep. Ugh. I performed terrible. I felt terrible. I don't know what it was but it didn't get any better on the ~6-mile cooldown. I had to stop twice because I was dizzy and couldn't run anything better than 7:50 pace back to my car.

It was a little warm but I don't know why I was so dehydrated and completely and utterly zapped of any and all energy.

But, thanks to Paul, I finished the workout even though I knew I was going to miss my times badly.

12.5 miles with my daughter riding by my side under blue skies and temps in the low seventies with a gentle breeze. Now if that isn't a perfect run then I don't know what is. I'm still feeling a bit dehydrated so I'm going to focus on drinking a lot of water the rest of the day.

Also went to the gym and did some core exercises plus weights:

12-8-4 Hammy Curls @ 20-30-40

15-10-5 Adductor @35-45-60

15-10-5 Abductor @35-45-60

Off to the heat and humidity of Minneapolis for 10 days.

My family and I took the redeye flight from Seattle to Minneapolis this morning and landed at 5:30 CDT. I got maybe an hour of sleep and then crashed for about three hours when we got to my parents house. So running seemed like one of the last things I wanted to do.

But you don't ever accomplish anything if you only do it when it's convenient or easy.

For the first half of the run it was a very pleasant 70 degrees with a light breeze but for the last half it really started to heat up and the humidity was above 50%. I carried 37 ounces of water with me but even with that, I still lost 4 pounds during the run. I didn't feel fatigued at all but as I look at running the USATF Marathon Championships here in early October, hydration is a concern.

But this was definitely my best run this week in terms of how I felt. Every mile was between 6:45-6:50 so I was very consistent. The country roads out here remind me of the IKEA commercials. They are the definition of "rollers." Nothing big but enough to keep you focused.

Easy 10-miler today ahead of tomorrow's 5k in St. Paul. Actually had a little bit of rain. Weird to have rain with temps in the 70s.

Well...today was my 5k debut. I didn't do myself any favors the last two days, eating like a cow at my parent's house. When I woke up I felt heavy and bloated but oh well.

It took about 40 minutes to get from my parents house to St. Paul where the race was. We were greeted with the implosion of an old coal chimney across the river 15 minutes before the race. Forutnately, most of the toxic cloud blew just to the south of the starting line. Kind of cool to watch. Most implosions I've seen have the building falling in on itself. This one they tipped over. I hope that was the plan.

The main reason I ran this race was because the prize for the winner was two round trip tickets anywhere in the US on Northwest Airlines. This was the fifth year they had run the race and I was surprised to see that the course record was only 16:09. Given the course is pretty flat and the fact that there is a very strong core of good runner in the Minneapolis area, I was just surprised that not more of the better runners here hadn't given this race a shot, particularly with two airline tickets at stake.

The 10k course record is a much faster 30:37 but it hadn't been run under 33:00 since 2005. So I debated which race to run but settled on the 5k mostly because I had never run one before.

The race runs along the Mississippi River just across from downtown St. Paul. Other than a small roller at the start of the race, it was virtually flat. However, there was a pretty strong headwind for the first two miles as a thunderstorm was moving in. Some tall dude was the only one who joined me from the start and he let me know he was only running a mile and offered to help pace me. With the headwind, I was happy to take him up on his offer to be a wind shield. The only problem was he wasn't going fast enough so I made the difficult decision to go out on my own. There was no question I was working harder by myself but I couldn't afford to go his pace and let the chase pack think I was in reach.

Mile 1 came in at 5:04, about 9 seconds slower than I had wanted to go out in but with the headwind the way it was, I felt like my effort was in line with the time I wanted so I kept plugging away. 9/10 of mile 2 was also into headwind and by now I was way out in front. There would be no rabbit to pace me this time.

The turnaround came at 1.9 miles. I skipped the water they offered there. My feeling is that far more can go wrong by taking water in a 5k than can go right. It's just too short for hydration to be an issue -- in terms of negatively impacting performance -- particularly in the near-ideal temperature and cloud cover.

I crossed mile 2 in 10:07 so a 5:03 on that one. Also slower than I had hoped for but probably about as good as I could of expected under the windy conditions. The return route was near the outbound route but it was sheltered in trees which was great for keeping things cool but it completely blocked the tailwind which I was hoping would give me a boost on the home stretch. Oh well.

Mile 3 came in at 4:56. I was pushing harder and it was a slight net downhill. It's the mile time I was hoping for on all the miles but what can you do. I covered the final tenth in 31 seconds which is about 4:50 pace. So I finished strong which was nice.

Finish time was 15:35 and a first place finish in my 5k debut. I haven't seen the final results, but I think the second place guy was more than a minute behind.

The course was great and the support staff was awesome. I've really learned to appreciate a well executed race and this was one of them. I briefly thought about running the 10k also, since it started 15 minutes after I finished the 10k but when I got to the starting line, I decided it would be more prudent to do a nice cool down...plus...I had another race to get to.

Yes...one 5k was not enough. I'm a distance guy after all so I felt a bit under worked. So we traveled back another 30 minutes toward my parent's house to a little town called Elko. They had a 1k kids race which my youngest son ran in and then a 5k race which me, my dad and my older son all ran in. I ran this because the race director is a dear friend of my father's and he had asked me to run. Plus, it was for a very good cause. So 90 minutes after finishing my race in St. Paul, I started 5k Part Deux. This race was also plagued with the same wind problems but even worse, it was fairly hilly. No brutal hills, but constant rollers which is pretty common for the suburbs of the Twin Cities. My legs actually felt pretty good. The course wasn't certified and my watch had it .05 miles long, but who knows. Incidentally, my watch had the earlier race pegged exactly at 3.11 miles. Take that for what it's worth.

Anyway, finished the second race in 15:58. I was completely happy with that. It was easily good enough for a victory as the second place guy was 19 minutes and high change. My son took second in his age group for the 5k despite a time well off of his PR. I reminded him that the wind was tough as was the course. Unclear whether he found that to be any consolation.

Anyway...sorry for the double race report but I couldn't figure out how to do two separate ones on the same day.

A wonderful run under sunny skies, a gentle breeze and temps in the low 60s. It's supposed to get hot later today and tomorrow though. I'm just hoping TCM is reasonable weather.